


Bad Days

by nbdisasterlyf



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Angst, Drinking to Cope, Gen, I didn't proofread this all, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Health Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, fair warning, just fuckin take it ok, only a brief implied mention tho, this is... very vent-y
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbdisasterlyf/pseuds/nbdisasterlyf
Summary: Angel does pretty well for themself but sometimes they have bad days. Sometimes they have very bad days. They cope. Perhaps not healthily but they cope. Sort of.
Kudos: 1





	Bad Days

**Author's Note:**

> if you're wondering if I'm ok, I'm not. But it's fine, it's chill, it'll pass. w/e, don't worry about it.

Angel was starting to build a bit of a reputation down in London. An intentionally constructed image of a good-hearted yet hedonistic young person with a sharp wit, smooth tongue, enough strength in their deceptively lithe form to make them a formidable force in a fight, and enough cunning to avoid notice when they want to. Almost every choice they make is a move to further this image and quite frankly they feel they are doing a rather good job if they could be so bold to toot their own horn in such a way. A little pleasure here, a little business there, and if they’re lucky they can do both at the same time. It wasn’t a bad life. Given the chance to do things all over again, they probably wouldn’t do much differently. However.

  
However, there are some days, if they’re being quite honest with themself, where their mind can become rather consumed with a strange darkness. Regret creeps in, an ache for things they can never return to creeps in, self-doubt creeps in, a strange sort of bitterness creeps in. Sometimes this can become almost all consuming. Like some dark beast has swallowed them up, taking them into itself so entirely that the edges of what is them and what is the beast become sickeningly blurry. 

  
On days like this, sometimes they try to fend of this sickly beast in their mind with drinking and merriment. Down to The Singing Mandrake, they sip away at strong drink and busy themself with merry company. They make crude jokes and occasionally let a few more morbid ones slip out, everyone too drunk to concern themselves with what has birthed these morbid quips. The crowd laughs, they laugh, all is merry and swimming with the pleasant dizziness of drink. For now, the beast can’t touch them, not in this place and not in this state. Sometimes they find themself going away with some particularly friendly company and spend the rest of the night indulging in each other, and though they’ll likely never speak of this night again and the soft-hearted widow will no doubt fret over them in the morning, it’s a delightful diversion for however long it lasts. Other times, they end up swaying home by themself, chuckling drunkenly to themself in the quiet of the late night or early morning. The soft-hearted widow will grimace at the stench of alcohol and sweat but she’ll help them back to their room none the less and in the morning she’ll have a hot meal and a warm bath ready for them, she’s far too kind for her own good.

  
Other times, on days like this, they’ll be consumed. Alone in their room, their drive for drinking and merriment will die before it can even generate a spark. They stare into the mirror hanging on the wall, observing their own darkness, preforming a morbid show for an audience of only themself. They stare – dead-eyed – at the paper in front of them, a pen in their hand slowly dripping its contents back into the ink pot it hovers over or onto the page below it creating dark black blotches that soak through and stain whatever is underneath. In bursts they scratch away at the paper with the blackened nib. Drawing morbid images or writing melancholy verses and prose. They create frantically, desperately, like a starving animal pursuing its prey. “What value is there in my pain if it isn’t beautiful? What is my suffering worth if it isn’t morbidly lovely? What good am I if even my darkness is worthless?” The beast cries in their voice. There’s a part of them that knows that these notions of pain being worthless if not beautiful are ridiculous at best and actively harmful at worst. The beast doesn’t care about this part of them. It simply continues to digest them, bending them to its will and taking them into itself. This will continue for however long it takes for the beast to be temporarily satisfied or until something can manage to come along and knock them free from its jaws. This may be only a few hours or it may at times drag on for days at a time, rest failing to deter that strange dark beast. 

  
At the end of all this, everything will simply return to normal. In the end, nothing has really changed. They are still the same person and they will continue to do the same things and continue to build that same image for themself. Perhaps they will tidy up their morbid scratchings and publish it, seeking validation and praise in their prettied up, lovely pictures of darkness and self-indulgent suffering. Nobody will trouble themselves with the source of this beautiful pain. Life moves on, largely unchanged. Perhaps they will feel hurt when their work doesn’t receive the validation they were hoping for. Perhaps this selfish hurt will join into a background hum of sickly thoughts in the back of their mind. Perhaps in might even come back to them the next time that wicked beast comes for them again. But no one needs to know about that. There’d be no benefit to that. No, there’s no worth in that kind of selfish suffering.


End file.
